Climbing Fansipan

Travel Story by Paul Young

Fansipan, Vietnam

Through the unsettling cloudy haze, I saw an alignment of charred trees and was grateful for the greener more vibrant vegetation near our base camp. My leg was wounded but not seriously, so I could still walk, despite the throbbing pain emanating from both of my callused feet.

The four of us all sat quietly resting after hours of a non-stop hiking up the side of Fansipan mountain. It was too late to turn back now – and we had already come halfway and were determined to finish what we had started.

Eoin, Brennan, Suzanna and I gazed curiously at the black scalded war-torn trees in front of us. After the guys dealed another round of cards, Suzanna finally had the courage to speak up and directed a question toward our Vietnamese guides, "Are the trees from... the war?"

We expecting a somewhat sorrowful response from them, but instead, the guides all looked at one another; said something in Vietnamese, and then started to chuckle at her remark.

"I think from fire," said one of the guides, peering from over his round glasses that were held together with sticky tape.

We looked at one another hesitantly, and simultaneous let out a burst of laughter. Apparently we're not running from the Viet Cong, my feet only hurt because I was stupid enough to wear sandals up a 3,143 meter climb, and apparently, forest fires can also be responsible for destroying foliage on misty mountain tops in Vietnam – not just bombs.

After recovering from embarrassment, we all enjoyed an early supper around the campfire, prepared by our conscientious Vietnamese hiking guides. Shortly after the meal, we noticed that one of the guides had gone off scavenging for something in a stream nearby. Only a few minutes later he came back with a skewer full of frogs, apparently ready for cooking. Unfortunately most of the frogs fell off into the fire, but surprisingly, we enjoyed the barbequed snack, which tasted of marinated chicken.

The next morning, after breakfast – and yet another zesty meal prepared by our gracious guides, I stuffed my poncho into my brand new shoulder bag, which I had proudly purchased at a market in the hill tribe village of Sapa a day before the journey for 60 Vietnamese Dong (about $4 US).

As I struggled to zip up the bulging bag, I noticed one of the guides looking precariously at what I was trying to do. He walked over and offered to lend me a hand with it, but I was determined to close it myself. I placed it on the ground, squeezed it into submission like a grappler does to his withering opponent in a K-2 bout, and zipped it up successfully without any extra assistance. I proudly threw the bag over my shoulder and was all ready, full of confidence to take on the mountain.

"Hey Paul, is that your water?" Suzanna said in her adorable Danish accent as she was helping the guides take down one of the tents.

"Oh, shit!"

I walked over to an old rotten tree stump and picked up the bottle of water which I had left there the day before.

"I thought my bag felt kind of light. Thanks!"

She just smiled amiably, and continued to help them fold up their tent.

I put the bag back down on the wet grass and I crammed the bottle into one of the exterior meshed pockets. By this point, my bag was starting to look like the State Puffed Marshmallow Man – all set to explode at any moment.

"Okay, time to go!" shouted the guide with the glasses.

I quickly picked my bag up and heaved it back over my right shoulder – suddenly there was a loud popping noise as I slipped the straps tightly around my arms. The bag was beginning to rip.

Now we were all well nourished, full of energy and prepared for the final ascent to Fansipan, the tallest and what we eventually discovered, was the most challenging mountain to climb in Vietnam. The four of us followed our guides out from camp and commenced the second day journey towards the peak.

"This part, more difficult than first part," said one of the guides.

"How many hours until we reach the top?" asked Eoin.

"About four hours. Almost same time as yesterday. But... " The guide then made a movement with his hand. He stretched his arm out, extended his fingers fully and then raised his hand from a flat platform-like position to a near ninety degree angle pointing upwards towards the sky. His wrist let out a subtle cracking noise as his hand could no longer bend any further.

As we walked away that morning, the plateau and reasonably flat area of our campsite gradually disappeared. The reality of the guide's gesture had sunk in: the second day's trek to the peak was going to be a steep one compared to the first day's three hour 'cakewalk'.

There was only Brennan in our group who wasn't wearing sandals. Don't get me wrong – we weren't wearing cheap flip-flops by any means. We all had strong, durable, and quality sandals with Teflon straps and tough buckles, but mine were in a different class altogether - and soon I was about to find out why.

It started to rain. The leisurely hike, turned moderate climb, had suddenly mutated into a fully-fledged, gut-wrenching, expedition where no one equipped with faulty footwear and discounted backpacks had boldly dared to go before. Prior to the down-pour, our surroundings were already quite damp, but the rain soon turned the tranquil hike through the enchanted woods of singing birds and chirping crickets into a backbreaking, knee-bruising struggle up through the slippery mud towards the seemingly unreachable peak of Fansipan mountain.

"Come on man! You can make it! Give me your hand!"

Someone was shouting at me. I thought I had blanked out for a second. I lifted my head up from a puddle and the mud slopped off of my face like the rich chocolate cake I had consumed for my last birthday - though this year's flavor just wasn't as sweet.

I snapped back to reality and saw someone's blurred hand reaching out to pull me up from the muddy mess. The rain continued to pour down on my soaked and ripped poncho. I lifted my hand up and grabbed their arm. I stood up and managed to step onto a section of the trail that wasn't covered in mud so I could regain my balance again.

"Thanks man. I don't know what happened there. I thought I went blind for a second," I said as I whipped the soupy mud from my eye sockets.

Brennan stood on a rock looking comfortable in his running shoes and mused at my slight misfortune. "That was pretty funny. One moment you were talking about finding your ideal beach in Thailand full of sand, sun, and weeks of daily back-soothing massages, and the next thing I hear are branches breaking, water splashing, and then... silence. I looked back and you were star-fished with your face in the puddle!"

I looked down at his comfy-looking runners and then over at my aching toes and misguided choice of footwear. "I can't believe I wore these sandals!" I looked down hopelessly at my waterlogged feet and my muddy wet Nikes that had most of their rubber grips worn away on the inner soles. I could tell there wasn't much traction left because of the direct view I had of one of my insoles. The sandal was no longer on my right foot, but rather half way wrapped around my mud-covered calf with a dangling front strap that had come loose during my collapse.

I pulled it down from my leg, re-fastened the strap, and tightened it back into position on my foot. My sandals were a real hindrance after that. If it weren't for the occasional sharp rock and pointy stick on the trail, I would have removed them and gone barefoot. Hell, even beach flip-flops would have been better than those dilapidated, worn-out sandals.

"Hey, did you see the others back there anywhere?" Brennan asked.

"They should be coming soon. I think they stopped for a breather. The air's sure getting thinner up here. How far up would you say we are?"

"Don't know, maybe two thousand meters?"

"Man, where's a chairlift when you need it! I don't know how much more of this I can take. My sandals keep giving out and I don't see this water drying up anytime soon."

I picked my bag out from the puddle of mud, heaved it over my shoulder. Suddenly, the right arm-strap ripped completely off and the bag splashed back into the puddle. I just stood there in silence looking down at my blistered feet and frayed backpack, desperately trying not to feel sorry for myself.

"I think the frog-catching guide can fix that up. He has some rope." Brennan said, trying to hold in his laughter.

With no chairlifts or helicopters to whisk us to the top in sight, we waited for a few minutes for the rest of the group to catch up. Luckily, when one of the guides arrived, he was able to successfully apply first-aid to my wounded backpack by tying the strap back into position with a combination of rope and sticky tape. For some reason, the guide was no longer wearing his glasses. Maybe he had just used them for reading and catching frogs for dinner, I thought.

Once everything was repaired, we all continued up the slippery inclined trails towards the peak. At the time, it seemed to be unattainable with the pace we were moving at. I must have fallen on my backside more than someone attempting to snowboard for the first time in their life after drinking a few bottles of whiskey. The others were also showing signs of exhaustion, but we kept moving upwards relentlessly towards the top, determined not to let the mountain get the better of us. After hours of blood, sweat and near tears from intense climbing, eventually the end of our strife was approaching. The walls of the mountain began to dissipate and our view of the sky opened up increasingly with every step forward we made.

As Suzanna and I narrowed up along a steep bend in the trail, I could hear Eoin and Brennan screaming something in the distance not too far ahead - but were they shouting because they had reached the end or were they hollering because someone had taken another tumble in the mud?

We moved quicker to see what all the fuss was about, and to my surprise, I saw Eoin lying on the ground as if he'd just breathed his last breath. On a gigantic rock next to him to his left, Brennan was standing with his arms reaching up to the sky like he was showcasing his best Rocky Balboa impersonation to all of Vietnam .

Just before he was about to belt out his infamous karaoke version of "Eye of the Tiger" I stepped into the scene to see what was going on.

Eoin suddenly let out a burst of laughter accompanied by a pure shout of jubilation as if he'd just won a gold medal, breaking the yellow tape at the finish line in one of those epic iron man contests. Fortunately, he wasn't knocked out, and collapsing on the peak was simply his way of celebrating the end of the most physically demanding climb all of us had ever experienced in our lives. I dropped my tattered backpack to the ground, whipped the sweat-saturated mud from my forehead, and passed my digital camera to one of the guides.

After a total of approximately nine hours of climbing during the past two days, and over a 3,000 vertical meters later, we had finally reached the summit of Fansipan. The four of us all gathered together on the giant rock where we posed for a photo to epitomize our conquering of the tallest mountain in Vietnam – and what we later learned to be the highest in all of Indochina.

Read more about the author of this story:
Paul Young

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